


Sentiment

by PaperRevolution



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Art, College, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-07
Updated: 2013-05-07
Packaged: 2017-12-10 17:54:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,094
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/788488
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PaperRevolution/pseuds/PaperRevolution
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Modern AU. Grantaire and Feuilly’s most recent art class assignment poses a difficult conundrum. Grantaire doesn’t care. Feuilly cares too much. Tension ensues.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sentiment

'Paint a still-life of objects which have sentimental value to you.'

It's a God damn ridiculous assignment, and Grantaire is seriously considering just plain not doing it. He's already failed to turn in one portfolio piece on time, though, and he needs the credits from this one, or else he won't pass.

Sentimental value. Mm-hmm. Evidently, their professor is operating under the assumption that they are all capable of feeling anything approaching sentiment. Grantaire rests his cheek on the cool, grained surface of the table and breathes out, long and slow. He has almost exactly a week to come up with something good. Or something passable; that sounds like a more reasonable goal.

He isn't the only one having trouble. Feuilly, too, has decided to stay behind to catch up. This isn't at all like him, Grantaire observes. Feuilly is one of those steady, meticulous, incremental workers who starts most of his pieces weeks in advance. Now he's fretting and sweating over a blank canvas right along with Grantaire, and how does that make Grantaire feel? Grimly satisfied; that's how. He's not the only one, this time. That counts for something.

Feuilly turns away from his easel, twisting his fingers together. His face, too, is all twisted up with tension. Grantaire can see that he's beginning to panic.

“Maybe I'll just use any old thing,” desperation renders his voice staccato.

Grantaire lifts his head from the desk, propping up his chin on his hands. “That's an idea,” he concedes. “I could do that. I bet I've got stuff lying around that'll do.”

“Mm,” Feuilly mumbles distractedly, pacing from wall to window and back again. The studio is airy and spacious, but today the clutter of easels and litter of paints and palettes feels noisily claustrophobic. Grantaire wants to get out. The only thing keeping him here is a bitterly remembered comment from Enjolras, earlier that week. You have no self-control, he'd opined, and the fact that Grantaire knows it to be true is what makes it sting. But this, right here, this is self control. He's going mad, here, strangling himself with a chain of increasingly stupid abstract ideas, none of which will be any good for this project.

“I get it,” says Grantaire, flatly, “You don't have anything sentimental. That's why you can't do this. 'Cause you don't have any family and you haven't got that many friends, so of course you don't have anything sentimental.” It's one of those times when he realises, even as the words are tumbling out, that he's being scathing and acidic and unwarranted. It doesn't stop him; he's buoyed up on restless frustration.

Feuilly recoils. It's a physical reaction; slight, but definitely there. His eyes widen slightly and his shoulder-muscles bunch beneath the thin cotton of his shirt. He's still pacing, and the turn he makes at the window is sharper than all the others before it. For a moment, he doesn't say anything. His footsteps carry him over to Grantaire's table, where he stands, rocking back on his heels.

“That's right,” he says evenly. “What's your excuse?”

Grantaire slumps in his seat, throwing his head backwards so that the muscles in his neck flex into taut cords.

“I just don't give a shit,” he breathes out, “I'm not bothered about anything. This is pretty much the stupidest assignment we've ever had. God.”

Feuilly is unmoved. Little wonder, really. Does Grantaire honestly expect him to feel sorry for him? He's basically just gone and told him that he's got nothing and no one important in his life. And Feuilly, he just takes it. He's one of those god-damn self-righteous people who might flinch at every glancing blow, but make a point of never actually saying anything. It gets right on Grantaire's nerves. He wants to shake Feuilly 'til his brain rattles. “Say something!” he wants to yell in his face, “Anything!”

“You know what I hate?” Grantaire grits out, now.

He can see the way that Feuilly, with some difficulty, is withholding a sigh. This small action spurs him on.

“You're too nice,” he presses. “You're nice to everyone. You're nice about people you've never even met, in countries you've never even freaking been to. Nobody likes the good guy.”

“Nobody likes the hardened cynic, either,” Feuilly mutters, sotto voce. Grantaire can't argue with that, so he says nothing.

“We're going to be here all night,” is what he says instead, after a protracted pause. “Not that it matters much to you, since you practically live here.”

At this, Feuilly's posture straightens. He looks at Grantaire very intently. For a moment, Grantaire gets the impression that he's gone and insulted him again, but then Feuilly does something kind of odd. He starts flitting from table to table, picking up things at random; a palette here; a brush there; a set of watercolours and a bottle of acrylic in some lurid shade of blue. Bemusedly, Grantaire watches him arraying the various bits and pieces on the table nearest to his easel, strategically positioning them; juxtaposing shapes and colours. Then Grantaire understands.

“You're going to paint a bunch of art supplies?” his thick, dark eyebrows go up. “Why?”

Feuilly, to his surprise, offers him a slanting half-smile. “You said it yourself,” he replies, “I practically live here. Clearly, if I'm going to be believably sentimental about anything, these are the things to get sentimental about.”

A grin itches across Grantaire's face. He lets out a bark of laughter.

“Freaking genius,” he says. “I hate you.” But he says it without vitriol, and he's still grinning, though god only knows why. His own project still looks set to go out with a whimper.

“Figured yours out, yet?” asks Feuilly, then, and Grantaire, the smile sliding irretrievably downwards like treacle, shakes his head.

“Well, at risk of incurring your wrath again,” Feuilly goes on with another of those close-mouthed smiles, “I think I have an idea.”

Grantaire looks at him. “And what's that?”

Feuilly stands up ramrod-straight, folding his arms, tilting his chin and widening his eyes into something between a glare and a plea. “Grantaire,” he intones in his best impersonation of Enjolras (horrible, but definitely recognisable), “Your task is now begun. But do not, under any circumstances, paint me in that absurd red jacket of Courfeyrac's.”

Grantaire is not sure whether to laugh or let out a garbled shout of indignation. Then he figures, why the heck not?

“Enjolras is a 'someone', not a 'something',” he says, “But I figure I might get extra credit for creativity, don't you?”


End file.
